


Dandelions Growing Between Cracked Pavement

by TheLadyGia



Series: Discord Enabled and Approved [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blindsided by our own mistakes, Greenhouse AU I guess, Herbology, It's a thing now, M/M, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), No Beta, We die like Canon James, if that's even a thing, oh well, plants because SoMeOnE likes Herbology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27486604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyGia/pseuds/TheLadyGia
Summary: After graduating from Hogwarts, Tom takes an internship at LHR Inc. in their Herbology department. He'll tell anyone who asks that he chose his job because of the sterling reputation of the company, but he will only admit to himself he chose his job because of his interest in the pair of powerful half-bloods who founded LHR, Messers Potter and Prince.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: Discord Enabled and Approved [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008624
Comments: 24
Kudos: 153
Collections: Enabled and Approved at the Wholesome Place, NW14_Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolf antlers (space_adventures)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_adventures/gifts).



> When I told wolf antlers that I'd write him a gift if he made it to 20k words on his October fic collection in our next sprint, I didn't expect him to slam out over 500 words and take me up on it. But I'm sure glad he did, because this little AU has been really fun to write so far while trying to edit chapters for Entwined. I'm thinking 1-2 more chapters after this one, and I hope they're just as fun to write. So thanks Rye! Also, additional thanks to SolAnise for giving this a read-through to make sure it made sense outside of my own head!
> 
> Prompt: Same gen: Harry runs a potion greenhouse, Tom works for him because he wants to have access to rare plants and then they fall in love.
> 
> The above prompt was the base, and I just kinda ran with it and let it evolve as Tom's voice evolved in my head. Hope you all enjoy, especially you Rye!

Days like today made Tom Riddle question if this plan was actually a good idea.

The morning had gotten off to a rough start when he woke to the sunlight streaming in through the window rather than the wand alert he  _ thought _ he had set last night. Tom had leapt out of his bed, taking a short, steaming hot shower and getting dressed in a flurry. Already running fifteen minutes late, he had rushed off without even his morning cup of tea.

Tom was a nightmare without his morning cup of tea. For all that the eighteen-year old recent graduate had made it his mission to charm anyone and everyone necessary, he lost all ability to utilize his charisma when he had to forego his English Breakfast. So, upon arriving at the LHR Inc. Greenhouses for his shift, Tom was a frowning, frustrated mess. On the inside. Even no morning cuppa couldn’t make Tom’s high and sharp cheekbones, his wavy brown locks or intense navy eyes look any less handsome. With the exception of this morning’s alarm, the former Slytherin King was always prepared, so his dark slacks were pressed, crease sharp as it showcased his lithe musculature, and his dark linen button up was wrinkle-free even with the sleeves rolled past his elbows putting his strong forearms on display.

His fellow caretaker for LHR had been the first to the greenhouses this morning, another change to his routine that put Tom off. Tom preferred being the one to receive the day’s intakes and expected outputs from Longbottom, better to keep up the image of the excellent employee, the hard-working plant-lover Tom had been channeling for the past six months.

If Tom hadn’t already eradicated his inclination towards nervous motions he’d have run a hand through his hair in frustration. Greengrass herself was always punctual, and her slight smirk at having been the one to report first this morning was pissing him off. Her trimmed nails and long black willowy skirt made her look sharp as ever and complimented her sleek ebony hair braided in that Dutch style he remembered the Rosier girl chattering about in the common room a few years back.

She passed him his piece of parchment detailing what to harvest for the day and which specimens needed specific attention either because it was their day on the rotation or because the supervisor had noticed something off about that particular plant.

Greenglass clucked her tongue before he had a chance to read it. “Particularly poor day for you to be late, Riddle.” Her side-eye mocked him, and he loathed this witch more than ever. As if Daphne Greengrass needed a lowly job as a greenhouse caretaker. The woman was the heiress to Greengrass Imports and was widely acknowledged as the successor to her father’s trade empire. Tom wasn’t sure if she was here for an in with the owners when her father eventually tried to bring LHR into the fold of their many umbrella companies or if she had taken this job on as some sort of small rebellion from her family’s expectations. Either way, her smug attitude and –Tom grudgingly admitted—natural affinity with plants grated on him every day they worked beside each other in the pungent mulch of the greenhouses.

“Oh?” Tom affected, appearing unconcerned. “And why is that Greengrass?” He gave his daily task list a glance over, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. Nothing seemed amiss with the plants in front of them either.

“Neville wasn’t the one who passed our worklists along this morning.” She flipped the tail of her braid over her shoulder, feigning nonchalance. Tom straightened. She couldn’t mean—“Mr. Potter, or sorry he asked me to call him Harry, oops.” Her canines sparkled as she smiled, looking like she was ready to rip Tom’s throat out with her teeth. “ _ Harry _ has recently returned to London after almost a year spent acquiring new samples and cuttings from around the globe. He seems a very worldly man, and he was quite complimentary of my punctuality and eagerness for the work we do here.”

Tom gritted his teeth so hard he momentarily feared he had chipped a molar. Of course his alarm failed to go off on the day one of the  _ co-owners _ of the  _ most lucrative plant and potions ingredient suppliers in the UK _ returned to oversee their work. Bloody brilliant.

He’d heard about Mr. Potter. Rather young to be the head of a multi-million galleon company, but his business partner was older than him and a family friend. The pair had gone into business together eight years ago, and in less than three years had a sterling reputation amongst British wizards for the quality of their ingredients and specimens as well as the incredibly potent brews made from their ingredients under trademarked recipes. Within five years Potter and Prince had dominated the entire UK, and now they were one of the main suppliers to France, Spain and Italy. Tom had heard rumors that Germany or Belgium would be the next country to come under purview of this company’s European empire, and Tom wanted in on all of it.

While the eighteen-year old wouldn’t say he enjoyed mucking around in the dirt, he could admit he had already learned more about how to maximize output from magical plants in small ways than he had over the course of seven years at Hogwarts. Neville Longbottom, the greenhouse manager seemed to be able to make plants flourish under his fingertips. The man’s entire demeanor changed in the tepid air of the hothouse, and he could make even the most stubborn trimmings bloom under his command, return any blossom from a wilt.

Outside of their work environment however was a different story. Tom had tried to take Longbottom out for a nip after work a few times, ingratiating himself further into the man’s good graces, but the older wizard was awkward and stilting in a way opposite to the firm guiding presence he gave off when teaching Tom and Daphne the best ways to harvest moonclover dew or coax creeping ivy into a wall of protection from other more venomous specimens.

What little information Tom had managed to extract from Longbottom during their outings amounted to a few stammered facts about one of the owners with whom Neville had attended Hogwarts. The pair had been Gryffindors together, with Potter being a few years older than the manager, and their mothers had been close friends in their own school days. Harry Potter’s parents had been the victims of a string of murders a few years prior to his sorting, so Potter had been raised under the purview of his two godfathers. When Potter had begun making plans to go into the magical ingredient business in their fifth-year, the boy had offered Longbottom a job upon graduation, already familiar with his friend’s affinity for herbology.

No matter how much Tom pried, Longbottom had remained rather tight-lipped beyond those basic facts. With the exception of Potter being co-raised by his godfathers, everything Longbottom mentioned had either been common knowledge or something Longbottom chose to reveal about himself. Tom wasn’t envious of such loyalty per say. He was more interested in what kind of man, or men if Tom thought about the other co-owner Mr. Prince, inspired such loyalty from his supervisor.

And now Greengrass had met Potter. Before Tom. That twat.

“I’m glad you got the opportunity to impress for once, Greengrass, considering you so rarely have the chance.”

It was a weak rejoinder, Tom knew. Greengrass’s twitching lips proved she knew she had the upper hand too. “Well, Riddle, let’s get to work. Wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Pot—Harry, now would we?” The arch of her brow made it quite clear she wasn’t the one who needed to worry about disappointing the boss. Tom suppressed a scowl and turned on his heel.

He opened and shut the door to Ivy House with more force than usual, the only visible outlet he gave himself for his rage. Tom pulled in a long breath to calm down and let the tensions drain from his shoulders at the earthy smell of the air in the hothouse. Ivy House was one of Tom’s preferred workspaces as the crawling namesake had worked its way up the walls, purposefully bathing the space in less light than most of the other greenhouses. The plants growing in Ivy House all thrived in lower or lesser lighting, and Tom had learned a great deal about how light-exposure changed the properties of certain species. He could also admit, if only to himself, that the feeling of being under a rainforest canopy, shady with brilliant sunbeams breaking through in certain spots to illuminate a new corner of the lush greenery, was soothing.

Tom tended to the drampinite flowers first. They were a midnight blue so deep the petals seemed black in the shaded light. The plant stems were thick, smooth to the touch and trisected into heads full of seven petals each, long triangles that curled back to reveal a shiny silver center. When harvested in full bloom during the witching hour, the petals gave off an almost intoxicating scent akin to cherry liquor and were useful in a handful of medicinal numbing potions as well as a battle drought and a lust potion both of which were patented products of LHR Inc.

The pads of Tom’s fingers stroked the fragrant petals, releasing a burst of light cherry scented air and giving the flowers a chance to let their accumulated buildup disperse. If tended to now at around 9:30, the perfect amount of resin would remain to make the petals at their most potent when harvested tonight.

This greenhouse was the only spot where drampanite flowers grew on British soil. Nowhere else outside of a handful of other greenhouses across the world and their native Romania could they be harvested. Specimens such as these were one of the reasons Tom had called in every favor to attain this job.

Here, Tom had access to potions ingredients that less than 50 other people in the world could find on the regular. After writing his OWLs, Tom had been searching for career options, but none interested him greatly. The ministry was full of pandering sycophants and blind bigots who couldn’t realize that forcing second cousins to procreate just may have been the reason their family had produced three squibs of their seven children in this generation. Slytherin heritage or not, Tom wouldn’t get to a position of power in the ministry without having to do some unpleasant things, submit himself to awful people.

He’d thought about staying at Hogwarts, trying for a mastery and making his way to a professor position, but there were no vacancies in the staff and his preferred professors were all committed to apprentices. Even once he was finished with his NEWTS, Slughorn, Merrythought, Kettleburn and Varnicus would all be unable to take on another post-graduate pupil. Dumbledore was out of the question. Tom wasn’t being dramatic when he said he’d rather kill himself than apprentice under that sanctimonious old wanker.

If Tom were honest, he was interested in the more esoteric magics anyways. He’d much rather discover forgotten branches of the mystic arts or study under a master who could teach him more specialized topics instead of the regimented curriculum the Hogwarts Masters touted. It was in searching through the various guild registries for the lists of Masters that Tom had first thought about LHR as a possible employer.

Between the two, Potter and Prince had registered seven masteries. Tom had read an article about the pair in Entrepeneur Monthly back at the beginning of his sixth year that had mentioned the pair being the most accredited and knowledgeable business owners in Britain. It would have been the UK if there weren’t a niche enchanter operation in Wales run by a trio who had nine masteries between them. Still, Prince carried masteries in Potions, Spell-Creation, Defense and Charms while Potter was a Master of Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures and Runic Magic.

The practices used in LHR’s greenhouses were so secretive that Tom and Greengrass had undergone extensive background checks and testing before starting their internships. He had passed through three rounds of interviews and had signed so many pieces of parchment that his hand had cramped. The magical non-disclosures agreement woven throughout the contract had attached to Tom’s magic like a leech the instant the final signature touched the page. He and Greengrass had spent a week in isolation as their magics adjusted to the constant weight upon them. Tom had been more impressed than resentful at the constant heaviness in his chest from the spells. Whenever they left their jobs, be it tomorrow or in ten years, the heaviness would follow them, keeping the practices instituted at LHR off the main market. The layers of spells set upon him had been co-created by Potter and Prince within two years of starting their business.

Longbottom had been part of the first wave of employees to undertake the extensive spellwork and had helped the last five classes of interns adjust during the process. “Well, the first year they were in business together, the bosses were still relatively unknown, you know?” Longbottom had mentioned under privacy wards over a beer in the Leaky. “So, when they started putting such high-quality ingredients and potions on the market their competitors got curious. You know that moisturizer that has been all the rage with witches for the last decade?” Tom had given a slow nod in return, how was this relevant to the dumbbell permanently resting on his collarbones? “That was an LHR-exclusive product before Shoshanna’s sent someone to intern in the potions-making department.” Longbottom confided.

Tom’s eyebrows had shot up, and he sat straighter than before at the realization of why Longbottom had chosen to share. “That intern gave Shoshanna’s an approximation of the recipe because the bosses only had a light set of spells woven into their employee contacts, and now every potioneer and beauty company sells a variant of that moisturizer. The bosses sued of course, but weren’t able to get anywhere close to the full amount returned. Not to mention, Shoshanna’s puts their ingredient list on the products.” Both men rolled their eyes at that. Neville muttered, “Stupid.” and Tom fully agreed. Longbottom concluded the story, “We were all given the choice to undergo the current process or sign even more extensive NDAs and lose our positions less than two months later.”

Tom remembered choking on his mouthful of ale at that. “Two months? They came up with all of that in TWO MONTHS?” “Most of it, yeah.” Longbottom had confirmed. The interview process you went through was instituted at the next round of hiring. It’s only changed slightly over the years. The contracts and spells you underwent though, that’s the exact same method I went through six years ago.”

As much as he disliked the girl, Tom had shared a great deal of the information he had gathered that night with Greengrass. She deserved to know how vicious their bosses would be if either of them somehow managed to subvert the complex web of charms now bound to their blood.

“They did what?” She had sputtered, when Tom told her that the bosses had somehow blacklisted that former intern to the point no one in magical Europe would hire her. Shoshanna’s had mysteriously let her go less than a week after the court case had settled, and the woman had ended up moving to MACUSA where she still wasn’t able to work in anything relating to plant or animal based products. One of the current employees had discreetly looked her up a few years back only to discover that she was a journeyman trying for a mastery in Runic Magic. Greengrass’s eyes had widened after Tom had given her a minute to put together why the woman was damned in such a future.

“Holy shit. What an idiot. She should have gone for Arithmancy.” Tom had let a laugh loose, and she had joined him less than a breath later. Once you signed on to an apprenticeship, you committed yourself to that learning until you became a Master or you died. You could only finish one mastery at a time, and the Runic Magic Mastery involved learning how to inscribe Runes into a variety of surfaces. Including leather during the journeyman stage. A woman somehow bound from interacting magically with animal products was doomed to never pass that stage of her mastery, forever keeping her from a Mastery or the ability to take on another career or academic pathway. Potter and Prince had led her to her own ruin. For stealing a skincare recipe.

The pair had stopped laughing pretty quickly after that. Greengrass had bought them both three fingers of firewhiskey. With a chiming clink of their glasses, Tom and Greengrass had downed the burning liquid in one and silently promised to never piss off Potter or Prince.

The more Tom learned about his bosses, the more Tom desired to meet them in person. Men like that, they were who Tom wanted to study under, learn from, emulate. They made things, and they made things  _ happen _ . Their abilities to create, to improve, to beat the system and show themselves better, had been the other draw to this company. If two half-bloods could economically imperialize the European potions and creatures ingredient market, then what else could a half-blood do? Tom wanted to find out.

And so he had. His determination along with the recommendations of his professors and his closest friend’s parents had gotten him through the interview process, earning him one of the few coveted spots in the LHR internship program. Tom had chosen to apply for one of the coveted Herbology positions for a few reasons, none of which were readily apparent. His professors and friends had been surprised beyond belief when he had first told them, but when he admitted to professor Slughorn that he had read in an interview that the bosses were the most hands on with the Herbology and Potions interns Slughorn had taken on that half-knowing, half-proud look that made some uncomfortable emotion stir in Tom’s belly. He wondered if it were gratitude or something else Tom never wanted to feel for another person who had a position of power over him.

Tom had played it off, telling his professor that he felt there was more to learn in such a field and that the opportunity was overlooked because so many witches and wizards found Herbology to be too humble of a specialty and that if Tom one day wanted to attain his potions mastery then he would wait until Slughorn could handle another apprentice. Both of which were true, but he had never forgotten what Professor Slughorn had told him that day. “You may not realize this Tom, but I knew Messers Potter and Prince. They too were students here, excellent ones. Ones I took a keen interest in, due to their talent and due to their mothers. You, who have always wanted to stand out, stand above—you remind me of them. And like the pair of them, I know there’s not a chance that you haven’t saved and recorded every scrap of information you could find about those lads. So, you know, like I do, what they are, what they came from. You see yourself in them. You’ve always had a voracious appetite for learning, just as Harry and Severus had. Severus was even a snake, like us. A member of my house,” he murmured, falling into his memories. “And young Harry, so like his father in looks but with the mind of his mother, a favorite of mine beyond most others. I always thought he sorted wrong, but with the choices he’s made there’s no doubt he is a lion as much as he could have been a snake. No Tom, I don’t doubt you chose Herbology for any handful of reasons, but there’s no better intern position at LHR that affords you the chance to meet and learn from both those men.” Slughorn nodded even as Tom stood ramrod straight, trying to give nothing away that Slughorn could use in the future. “A well thought out and underrated choice, my boy. Excellent job.”

Tom’s reply of, “Thank you, sir,” had been stiff, overly formal in a rather intimate moment, but Tom had always hated feeling so  _ seen _ . Everyone else Tom had talked to had missed those underlying reasons for his choice. Slughorn seeing right through him made him feel every inch the seventeen-year old he was, and it was not to be born.

Lily House was the largest greenhouse LHR boasted, to the point it had offshoot rooms named for different species of lilies. Tom thought it made sense considering the company’s logo contained a lily. He trod into the Calla room, the white bulbs sectioning off the different plant patches more visibly than any other room on the whole property. The plants here all in some way related to purity, and every entrance into the room was preceded by a spell that cleansed the approaching worker of an possible toxins or contaminants as well as a spell that left a light film of magic between the outermost layer of the worker’s skin/clothing/gloves and the rest of the atmosphere.

Learning the theory of that spell alone, one created by Potter during his Hogwarts years, was worth six months of toiling under Longbottom. Tom and Daphne had spent two weeks learning how to manifest their magic on their fingertips and then their palms, getting the feel of their own inner power, enough to recognize and manipulate it up and down their arms. Once they grew comfortable, Longbottom taught them the  _ sic vestit magicae _ spell to push the gathered magic over the rest of their body and hold it in place without having to expend the extraordinary effort that such an endeavor would normally require.

Now, with magic shield covering him, Tom bent to add a fresh layer of mulch to every separating section of calla lilies. It was just the base mulch that Tom, Greengrass and Longbottom put together every Sunday, rather than any of the other more intricate mixes that certain plants needed to flourish. Once Tom had finished retrenching the callas, Tom moved to the Selendrome plants, carrying the two pails of water melted from the arctic ice caps to poor onto the roots.

Like many of the specimens in this room, Selendrome plants require purity to produce purity. If only touched by the purest of ingredients—magic, water, sunlight, moonlight—pure nutrient enriched soil—Selendrome leaves were some of the strongest poison curatives in the world. If a purely-grown leaf were to be placed under the tongue, it could prevent orally-applied poison from activating, and would grow hot enough to warn the person using it that something poisonous had been ingested. That’s not even to mention the uses of selendrome plant parts in antidotes and antihistamine creams. Allergic reactions were momentary instead of drawn out thanks to the poultices and pastes created in the LHR labs.

Tom raised a hand to wipe off the sweat that had built up while he watered the entire patch of selendrome plants. After he sanitized and put the pails away, Tom walked the room, just giving the plants a general check before he moved on to his next task for the morning. He slowed as he passed the Chrinite, giving himself an extra moment to look at the pale pink bulbs that belled out at the tops. They were his favorite flower in this room, and had been created by Mr. Potter himself. He crossbred them from a species of tulips and the calla lily. They weren’t harvested often—in fact they had yet to be harvested during Tom’s internship—but he was told they had very specific uses in potions, and that the experimentation process had been infamous in the R&D department.

Longbottom chuckled when he had first shown Tom and Greengrass the petals that remained silky off the stem without preservation techniques. “Harry, er, Mr. Potter developed these as a gift actually. He thought they were pretty, and he had planned to primarily grow them at his home. However, when Mr. Prince first saw them he demanded a bouquet. You should have seen Potter’s face.” Longbottom couldn’t contain his grin. “He was so caught off guard, stammering out a polite refusal that Prince just waved off like a fluttering ladybug. ‘No you dunderhead, don’t be disgusting. I gave you The Talk. Focus! Can’t you see the research potential here?’” Greengrass and Tom both offered polite smiles while Longbottom guffawed. “Oh, you should have seen his face. Red as the original tulips. Anyway, three months later we planted the full patch here. We only harvest them once a year, so be on the look out for when we finally schedule it. You won’t want to miss what becomes a full department event.” He finished with a wistful look that made Tom and Greengrass glance at each other with raised brows and skeptical eyes.

Tom made sure his fingers were still cloaked in his magic before he reached out to stroke his index finger along the outside of the bulb, tracing the soft lip of the petal that bellowed outward. He straightened and pulled today’s parchment out of his back pocket. Ah yes, time to go to Lilac House to tend the herb garden. A much more tedious task, working with ordinary specimens, but a necessary one. Seven years of potions proved how integral herbs were to magical processes.

Once finished in Lilac House, Tom washed up and broke for lunch. Having skipped breakfast, Tom hoped to pop off to the nearby town to grab a heartier meal, but with Mr. Potter being on the property today, he was loathe to take off if the opportunity to meet the boss existed.

Tom looked around, aiming for casualty in his glances to see if Greengrass or Longbottom or Potter were around and also breaking for the midday meal. He saw his fellow intern heading into Daisy House and knew she would be at least another 40 minutes with what she likely had left to do in that section of the greenhouses. Out of the corner of his eye, Tom thought he had seen long raven-colored hair, so he took his shot anyway.

“Greengrass!” The young woman stopped and turned her head slowly, as if to express her disbelief that Tom were speaking to her during working hours when he wasn’t expressly made to do so. “Yes, Riddle?” She answered kindly, but her eyes said “what in merlin’s bloody blazes do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m breaking for lunch and was in the mood for company. I thought I’d see if you wanted to join me.” Tom’s smile was pleasant, eyes just wide enough to appear innocent to someone who didn’t know him well enough. Greengrass did though. Her own eyes flickered to the left and narrowed. Her lips twitched and smoothed out as she stopped herself from scowling. “I can’t at the moment, Riddle. I’ve got to finish pruning the shrivelfigs before I break for my meal, but” here she took a shaky inhale before forcing herself to finish the sentence, “thanks for asking.” This time it was Greengrass who may chip a molar.

“Oh, no problem Greengrass, maybe some other day this week then when we finish around the same time.” Tom’s lips pressed together to prevent him from laughing at her predicament, but he rid himself of any hint of smugness at the sound of a new voice.

“I’ve just finished up for the morning. I’d be happy to grab a spot of lunch with you, Riddle, is it? Well, as long as you don’t mind sharing a meal with someone you haven’t yet met that is.”

Tom turned to finally get a full look at the man striding towards them. Oh Salazar, he didn’t remember Potter looking like  _ this _ the last time he and Prince had posed for publicity photos. The man was tall, almost as tall as Tom who stood at a commanding 193 cm, and had a deep tan that left his skin a soft golden-brown tone. He had strong features. A square jaw, a long but tapered and straight nose, full eyebrows. His hair was pulled into a low ponytail, wrapped with a piece of leather. The raven locks took on a blue tinge under the bright midday sun, and the ends curled with a subtle elegance. All these things Tom noticed, but none so much as the man’s eyes. Molten emeralds starred back at him as he met Potter’s friendly gaze. His green irises were flecked with caramel-brown flakes, and his long eyelashes complimented this one soft feature on his face.

Tom, for once, was speechless, but only for a moment. No matter how beautiful this man may be, he was Mr. Potter, and Tom had been planning this meeting in his head for years.

“It’s all the same to me, sir!” Tom responded back, amiable and open. “As long as  _ you _ don’t mind sharing a meal with an intern.”

“Well, that’s settled then.” Potter laughed. “Let me just grab my coat, and we can be off! There a pub over in Alfriston that fries up a fantastic fish and chips, and I’ve been craving it since returning to Britain. Sound alright to you?”

“Sounds great, and may I say, welcome back, Mr. Potter.” Tom’s smile was a tad too wide, and Potter’s cheeks colored a pink so light it was barely noticeable.

“I-thank you Riddle. And please. Call me Harry.”

Internally, Tom preened.  _ Fuck you, Greengrass _ .

Instead, he responded, “Only if you call me Tom, sir.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom has lunch with Harry, the interns have their first experience learning under the legendary Mr. Potter, Tom temporarily dodges an inquisition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Part Two is finally here! It looks almost nothing like how I'd originally thought, and it took much longer for me to finish then I had planned, but it's here!
> 
> I struggled to get this one out. I really did. I had a clear idea of where I wanted the chapter to end, so I wrote that first. Then I wrote the beginning, and loved it. The middle is where I got lost, and by lost I mean I wrote eight thousand words of a _middle_. So, you guys get more magic and character development instead of flirting, and it turns out the original ending is now going to be the end of chapter 3 instead. (Also, surprise there will be at least 4 chapters now because I have no restraint and my characters demanded to be heard).
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy the turn this chapter has taken, even if it means less Tomarry flirting in this chapter. They'll be more next time to make up for it!
> 
> Also, final little AN, I hope this update puts a smile on the wonderful Wolf_antlers' face after a long week. Much love, Rye.

Harry was incredible. He had just got back to Britain last night from a nine-month trip through eastern Europe. Greece, Morroco, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic. All places he’d been before, but this time they had been his home for over half a year as Harry sought new plant species to bring back to the greenhouses, unknown or rare creatures to meet and study, new spells to unearth and work into the LHR collective. Tom was awestruck at the casualty with which Harry spoke of his work, this incredible life. 

Tom couldn’t envy the man. Not really. Harry regaled Tom with stories from his travels with such pleasure and genuine excitement that Tom couldn’t begrudge him his adventures. Harry was born to do this, and it became clearer and clearer with every earnest sentence that fell from Harry’s mouth as the pair chatted over what Tom could agree were the best fish and chips he’d ever tasted. 

_ This _ was why he had so badly wanted to work at this company. Harry’s presence was unlike anything Tom had ever known. The man exuded confidence in the wonders of the magical world. Harry wasn’t waxing poetic on the uses of switching spells in healing (not that such was an uninteresting topic per se). Harry was describing the prowess of the Cantrial, a slavic magical horse that was so magic-saturated that the creature’s body lost most of its density, thereby making the horse capable of galloping across surfaces that should never be able to sustain its weight. Harry had watched one run across the  Liptovská Mara with his own eyes, had spent three weeks gaining its trust and approaching the horse in the wild, convincing it to part with a few of its tail feathers.. 

Tom noticed that Harry was one to gesture as he became excited, waving his hands about as he described this and that plant. His emerald eyes would fade in and out of focus as he got caught up in a moment that Tom couldn’t see, but the enthusiastic man would waste no time in describing it to him once he had shaken himself from the memory. “Arion, that’s what I’ve named him, you see. Well Arion was incredible, Tom. I’m in awe of many of the magical creatures I’ve come across, but Arion was spectacular, with his glorious golden coat and marble-white hooves racing across the water top, not even kicking up a spray. Merlin,”

Harry’s hand smacked lightly down on the table in his fervor, and he came back to himself in an instant, an embarrassed smile stretching out as he shot Tom a sheepish look. “Sorry to talk your ear off about all this. I get pretty wrapped up in my work, and I’ve this article I’m planning to write about the Cantrial breed on my mind now.”

Tom patted Harry’s outstretched hand reassuringly, trying not to let his hands linger on the man’s warm skin. “Don’t worry. Your stories are fascinating. I’m not bored at all.” 

Tom paused, psyching himself up to say the rest of what he had planned. How he said this next bit was important, would set the tone with Harry moving forward. 

Tom lowered his eyes to the table and then glanced up at Harry through his eyelashes. He let his fingers brush Harry’s skin lightly and admitted in a low tone that barely made it across the space between them, 

“I don’t think  _ you _ could ever bore me, Harry.” 

Tom then withdrew after a last sweep of his fingertips and kept his eyes on Harry’s. Looking embarrassed would make Tom seem too submissive to a man who clearly respected strength. 

Tom watched Harry’s breath hitch, just for a second before he tried to breathe normally. The man blinked hard but didn’t let any other response cross his face. Finally, Tom spotted that enticing flush rise up Harry’s neck and felt triumph shoot down his spine.

“Oh, well. Uhm, thank you Tom.” Harry raised the hand Tom had just touched and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m looking forward to working with you now that I’m back in the country. Neville’s reports on both you and Daphne” Tom clenched his right hand into a fist beneath the table.  _ Fuck you and my Merlin-forsaken wand alarm, Greengrass _ .

“Have been nothing but positive.” Harry continued, oblivious to Tom’s distaste for his fellow intern and Harry’s familiarity with her. 

“So I’m excited to have a greater hand in your internships for the next five months. Just from talking to you both I can tell you the two of you have really taken to the magic we employ here, not to mention the intricacies and oddities of how I have arranged the greenhouses.” Harry’s lips lifted into a one-sided smile at that. “You have no idea how much the arrangements irritate people of a more rigid mindset.” His chuckle sounded like crunching honeycomb, crackling and smooth at the same time, and Tom couldn’t tell whether he was madder at Harry for having such a sexy laugh or at himself for finding such a small thing so enticing. “Anyway, I guess we’ll see if you really don’t get tired of my ramblings over the next few months, won’t we?” 

Tom returned the smile Harry shot his way. “I guess we will, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir. I’m not old or a professor.” The older man shot back cheekily. “Let me just pay the tab and we can head back for the afternoon. We’re probably pushing the usual lunch hour, but at times like these it pays to be the boss.”

“You don’t have to—“ Harry raised one of his thick eyebrows as an amused smile perked at the corners of his mouth. 

“Thank you, Harry.” Tom said with a sigh. Of course he wouldn’t turn down an offered lunch from the man, but still. Token protest was polite as Tom’s mother often reminded him.

He watched Harry walk to the bartop to pay their bill, a bounce in his step at being able to pay the check with so little fuss. Out of Harry’s sight, Tom let a smirk replace his smile and he eyed the man’s legs. Harry had worn leather trousers, and they clung to his muscles like a second skin, not to mention the man’s arse. Tom shook himself out of such thoughts. Now was not the time to be ogling his boss. Sure, he was gorgeous and kind, but that wasn’t what Tom was here for. Tom wanted his  _ mind _ . The layers upon layers of spells Harry had woven into the greenhouse walls. His magic vibrated from each building, cloaking them all in it’s heady presence. Tom wanted the creatures Harry had unearthed, the runic arrays he had devised, the secrets of just how he had amassed such a power base in Europe before age twenty-five.

Harry made a fine sight, but he would make an even better mentor, and Tom was determined to be his apprentice. Greengrass could learn in the internship. Tom wouldn’t begrudge her the work she’d done and the right she’d earned to certain knowledge, but from almost the moment Tom had heard Potter had never taken on an apprentice he had only one goal in mind. Being the first, the only.

And now, as Harry slipped his credit card back into his wallet and gestured to Tom to meet him at the door, Tom felt like his goal was within his grasp.

\------

After observing Tom and Greengrass for two weeks, Harry called the pair together the following Monday morning for a conversation about their schedule instead of just handing them their daily task lists.

“I’m happy to let the two of you know that, after my initial in-person assessment, I can say with confidence that you are where I expected you to be in your internship.” Despite the fact they could tell Harry was pleased with their progress, neither Tom nor Greengrass liked the idea of being merely where they were  _ expected _ to be. Both teenagers were used to exceeding expectations, not matching them.

“Now that you are versed in the basics and competent at maintaining the ongoing systems in place here, I will be taking over your training for the rest of your internship.” Tom felt his magic buzzing just beneath his skin, and he could sense rather than see Greengrass’s wider-than-normal eyes. “I should warn you that, while you may be excited now to hear such news, you will be beyond frustrated with me over the course of the next three months.” Tom opened his mouth to contradict such a statement and heard Greengrass’s intake of breath as she prepared to do the same. 

Harry cut them off with a rueful smile and a shake of his head. “Trust me. Every pair of interns for the past six years has told me at the end of their internship that they had, at one point, either individually or jointly considered poisoning me. Just enough that I wouldn’t be able to come to work for a few weeks.”

Tom couldn’t believe it. How could anyone get tired of learning from a man like Harry? How were they not craving his knowledge? Tom and Greengrass eyed each other, thoughts clear on their faces.  _ Those idiots clearly weren’t up to the challenge like we are _ .

Harry’s eyes shone with amusement, but nothing else on his face showed that he had even noticed the interns’ silent communication. “The first thing I will be instructing you in is creating the upcoming year’s supply of stakes for the greenhouses. The lunar year that LHR runs on resets in three months, and we like to have everything prepared about a month and a half out.”

Tom schooled his face to hide his disappointment at such a mundane task, but something must have shown in his features because Harry picked up where Tom’s thoughts left off. “I know it doesn’t sound like that intense of a job, but one of the most important, if not the most important, lessons that you’ll learn from me is the significance of small details and mundane tasks in contributing to incredible products.” 

Tom and Greengrass nodded, both feigning enthusiasm for the work ahead. Harry huffed a laugh and shook his head at them. “Chin up, you two. You’ll see.”

And with that, the work began.

Under Harry’s instruction the two interns spent the next five days hand-sanding wooden stakes carved from discarded wand branches that had still been magically sound enough to draw a bowtruckle’s approval. Once every piece of wood matched the various specifications Harry had given them--some of which were short and fat, barely 14 centimeters tall, while others were three meters long and thin as a wood shaving--, Tom and Greengrass moved on to spending a whole week creating a work table out of natural materials and their own magic. They assembled the altar-like structure in a clearing on the property where nothing inorganic ever came within a kilometer. 

Harry had taken them to a quarry that LHR owned and operated specifically for the access to the raw, unhewn stone they used for the work table. Once the trio was down in the echoing basin of the quarry, Harry led Tom and Greengrass through exercises in which they shaped their magic into various weapons and carving instruments. Tom, in particular, struggled to wield his magic into the form of a chisel. 

Once they had run through enough short-term practice with the various forms, Harry then showed them how to cast  _ de magia formatae _ using the same wand movements and intonization structure as  _ sic vestit magicae,  _ only changing the final flick to face outwards rather than inwards. The adapted spell would keep their magic in the form of the tools necessary to extract limestone from the quarry. 

Once they mastered the new spell, Tom and Greengrass spent hours using their hands and their pure magic to harvest enough limestone to create a pseudo-altar. The pair were so sore the next day that their magic snapped and crackled in the clearing where they meant to set up their construction. Greengrass could barely lift her arms above her chest, and Tom felt a tenseness settle into his lower back that had him moving slower than normal from the time he woke to the time he fell into his bed.

Once they had a proper work table built, Harry walked them through laying a ritual circle down around the altar. “To begin, you must meditate on what it is you mean to accomplish within this space.” Tom and Greengrass closed their eyes. This was not the first time Harry had guided them through visual meditation since he took over their training two weeks ago. 

Harry’s steady baritone picked back up after giving the pair a moment to regulate their breathing. “Picture your favorite of the greenhouses.” Tom thought of Lily House, and the variety of rooms with settings to suit any mood. 

“Feel the leaves of the plants under your fingertips, recall the way they stretch and grow, reaching for the sun or drawing closer to their caretakers when you enter the room. Think of the many tasks you do, all with the intention to help these specimens flourish.” Rows upon rows of asphodel sprung up in Tom’s mind, each section planted to separate the most lively, interactive plants grown in a non-venomous greenhouse from the other species. A soft smile stretched across Tom’s lips as he thought of his daily duty of sending a soft breeze through each small field of the flowers, making the stalks dance in the light wind. The pollen the flowers released would drift through the room, creating a lulling effect that would calm the surrounding plants. Each time the room relaxed enough so that Tom could tend the rest of the plants, help them grow taller rather than wilder, Tom sighed in satisfaction.

“Stakes and dowels are vital tools in your endeavor to care for the majority of our plants, so you need them to be crafted perfectly in order to do the primary thing you have set out to accomplish in this job. Finger the smooth wood of last year’s stakes in your hands. Trace the runes and picture the process of each plant growing around them.” The dowels were a steady weight in his hands every time Tom made the walk to Hydrangea House to re-stake the fanged geraniums. The skinny wooden cylinders kept the snapping heads from pulling the stems too far to either side thus making the plant grow crooked. Not to mention, staked geraniums also had a smaller change of ripping into the flower next to them. For each individual plant, Tom would picture the rune for peace in his mind, stroke the same rune impressed into the wood and croon a lullaby to soothe the biting head enough to insert the dowel into the nearby soil and attach the flower to it.

“Suffuse yourself in the feeling of confidence when you’ve staked a recently sprouted sapling that you know will grow large. Immerse yourself in the satisfaction of removing a stake that helped a plant make it to the end of its cycle to be harvested. Hold that feeling in your mind, and open your eyes in three, two, one.”

Tom’s came back to physical awareness, a thrumming energy coursing through him. His vision was brighter than normal around the edges, and he felt the grass at his feet swaying to the rhythm of his breaths. 

“Turn to look at your partner.”

Tom shifted left to face Greengrass who had twisted to the right to match him. She had braided her black hair tightly, keeping it out of her face, but the tail flickered in a wind Tom couldn’t see. Her blue irises glowed with power and tranquility, which made Tom assume his own were giving off a similar light. The witch was slight, a full head shorter than both he and Harry, but she held herself with a strength and grace that had always impressed Tom.

“This is the only other person your age who has had the same experiences you are drawing upon for this task.” Harry’s voice had hardened to be determined and commanding. He must have noticed the subtle tension between the two of them these past weeks. 

“You pass by each other each day, reaping what the other sows and sowing in return. From the moment you cast the circle and begin preparations until the moment the circle extinguishes after you’ve completed the stakes, you only have each other. You cannot accomplish this task alone. This person will be your right hand, your accomplice, your counterpart. They will work when you sleep, move when you are still, hold the circle when you grow weary.”

Tom thought of the asphodel and fanged geraniums he had kept in his mind, recalling Greengrass bent over the screechsnap whispering compliments and massaging the purples petals on the other side of the room. Tom remembered the sharp tug on his robes that had saved his shoulder from a vicious set of teeth while he and Greengrass defanged the vampiric vegetation as well as the arm he had slung around her stomach to pull her out of range of the venomous tentacula when it was having a particularly bad day.

As if sharing the same thoughts, both Tom and Greengrass stepped closer and extended their left arms out, grasping the other’s forearm. Navy met baby blue and the grass around them began to sway to the same rhythm as the blades at Tom’s feet. He felt the tips of his hair jump and flick in the same pattern as Greengrass’s braid. Their glowing gazes simultaneously turned to Harry, and their boss sent a triumphant grin at them in return.

From there, Harry instructed the interns to cast concurrently while standing with Tom’s front pressed tightly to Greengrass’s back, wand arms waving in tandem to lay lines of magic down in a six-pointed star enshrined within a circle. Harry then tasked them with digging a shallow circular trench six centimeters past the magic-ed line of the ritual circle.

When they returned to work the next day after resting up their magic, Harry took them on an ingredient acquisition trip of their own. At each stop he would show them how to focus themselves while harvesting wild specimens. As they traipsed across the UK, Harry would explain with his lilting voice why each component increased the efficiency of the ritual, the difference between a three-strand plait and a four-strand plait as well as the significance of both in nature magic, the reasoning behind a six-pointed star rather than a pentagram or triangle. 

Tom and Greengrass had learned on day two of working with Harry to always have their grimoires in their pockets and a dicta-quill ready to record Harry’s lessons while their hands were busy with other work. Such a set up was doubly useful when they were trekking along a beach or through a forest and unable to otherwise write with a steady hand. And so they gained another taste of the man’s extensive knowledge during their trip. 

They learned the reasons for the requirement of a protective element’s representation in a nature-based ritual as they headed to the coast for sand wetted by the high tide. The sand would bank the fire they would light in the circular trench they’d dig around the ritual space. They listened to the importance of mental preparation for any time-accelerated task as he brought them to Scotland to pick up Bog Myrtle and Scottish bluebells. Both blooms would be plaited together and lay along the lines of magic they would cast in the six-pointed star inside the circle as well as along the circle itself. They listened to his stories of exploring the Forbidden Forest every Wednesday night during Harry’s Hogwarts years when he took them to call upon the Groundskeeper who Harry knew to come across various magical creature parts that were discarded or shed on Hogwarts grounds. Hagrid passed over strands of unicorn hair that he said had gotten caught in brambles or thickets in the forest when the herd had been passing through. These would join the plait with the Scottish flora and would served to focus their purity of intent during the coming process. After Harry showed them how to feel the animals’ magical resonances left in the hair, he told them about befriending a young unicorn colt who had once gotten separated from said herd

Once the preparations were finally finished and each element had been incorporated into their ritual circle, Tom and Greengrass spent twenty-eight days arching over that altar, drawing on the natural magic that surrounded them. The pair channeled the steady warmth of the sun through the ritual lines to guide their hands, speed their movements, perfect their technique.

Harry’s method of using miniscule pinpricks of their magic to inscribe LHRs perfected runic arrays into the dowels rang continuously in their ears. The wind in the clearing worked on their behalf to muffle any other sounds that could distract them. 

Tom and Greengrass relied on each other, working side-by-side for eight hours a day, resting for eight and working alone for eight. In the hours they labored together, Tom and Greengrass would sometimes fall into synchronization. When they were both perfectly focused, the pair would begin to sing together. Tom’s tenor and Greengrass’s soprano harmonized as they hummed a Scottish ballad about the beauty of nature. It just felt right to do so, the melody falling from their mouths without prompting. Their tune inexplicably filled the circle with the smell of heather and allowed them to reach a speed faster than at any other time during the process.

On the early evening of the twenty-eighth day, Tom and Greengrass finally finished with the last of the tens of thousands of stakes. The setting and the ritual magic they had laid had pushed them to finish their task with a fervor that burned in their blood. The scent of the bluebells and the shadows cast by the banked fire had spurred their tired bodies to continue. The influence of the bog myrtle and the purity of intent from the unicorn hair had guided their hands to never lay a rune incorrectly, to move at a pace that would have frightened them if they had given themselves a moment to think about it. 

Everything in that clearing had one intention and one intention only, to create a year’s worth of plant stakes with no mistakes so that magic would return to magic and life would live and prosper even in its death. And because of the meticulous preparations that Harry had insisted upon, because of the visualization he had made them practice, the search, the trek, the work of their hands and magic and only their hands and magic, Tom and Greengrass had completed this gargantuan task to perfection. They were almost drunk on the success of it, but as they let their magic fade back under their skin and gave themselves the first true rest of the past four weeks the reality of what they had done, what they had accomplished, hit them.

Staggering under the weight of it, the pair had laid head-to-foot in the tallgrass watching the leaves rattle and shake above them, reveling in the soft swoosh of the blades against their exposed skin. What they had just done had been the most intricate, emotionally-taxing magic than Tom had completed since his entrance into the wizarding world, and his mind felt conflicted. On one hand, he was at peace. Tom had been a part of something beyond his imagination. He had interacted with magic and intention in its most natural, pure forms and had shaped them to do his will, steady his hands, accomplish his task. The implications of how they had achieved such an incredible thing for such a  _ simple _ purpose was what had left him shaken. 

_ If this is how we can use magic and intention to guide and improve simple steps, routine processes, what are we capable of if we apply Harry’s methods to more intricate, impactful magical creation? _ He didn’t even mind sharing this moment of revelation with Greengrass. Not after they’d been through this together. Besides, she’d felt it too, Tom could tell. He could sense that her magic was as lulled, as satisfied under her skin as his was at what they’d accomplished. 

Tom hadn’t expected her soft, “I’ve lived my life drenched in magic, but I never knew it could feel like  _ this _ .” He understood. Of course he did. “Hogwarts made me feel intoxicated on the magic surrounding me. Something vague and hovering always out of sight that now shined before my eyes,” He admitted. “All I could think when I thought of magical power or prowess was the punch of a spell or the rush of a ritual. I appreciated subtly in magic’s uses, but not in magic itself. I never thought of how my intent affected every magical and mundane action I take, how it could transform simple actions into . . . profundity.” 

Greengrass let Tom’s words surround them. A pair of snakes shedding their protective skins in the aftermath of revelation. Twilight cast soft shadows over both their features, but neither had moved from their prone positions. Stars dotted the sky, sharing the spotlight with the fading sun, and Tom could taste the cleanliness, the freshness of the forest’s magic encircling them under this stolen moment of tranquility as they waited for the fire to burn out and release them from the ritual.

“For all my arrogance, I knew there had to be so much more to learn. But not this. I didn’t know. I couldn’t conceive--” He heard the slight crack in his voice and stopped before his voice broke further.

“I think--at least until we leave the clearing tonight, I think you should call me Daphne.”

“Tom, but just for tonight.”

“Do you remember thinking Herbology was the softest subject known to wizardkind?” Daphne’s voice had lost all its sharpness as she offered her thoughts up in their companionable silence. 

In their seven years at school, Daphne had seemed a marble sculpture carved without the softness that made art seem touchable. Her curves were forbidding rather than inviting, her facial features angular and glacial and beautiful. She had seemed the counterpart to Tom’s own aloof handsomeness. Now, they were here, soft underbellies exposed and vulnerable, basking in how small and young and  _ stripped _ they felt.

“So many times I sneered at the thought of getting my hands dirty. I even bribed Thomas to do my half hour of weekend conversation with my flitterbloom in sixth year, because I couldn’t be bothered to spend an extra minute in the greenhouse when I was certain my lack of presence wouldn’t matter to the pathetic flower.” She continued. “I got an EE on the project and felt like it was confirmation that tending plants was the most mundane of careers.” Tom thought her voice sounded oddly wounded.

“What made you go for this internship then, Daphne?” Tom didn’t pay much attention to his peers. He’d always been a rather self-focused boy, and that hadn’t changed when he had gotten his letter. Still, he thought Greengr--Daphne had been a particular potions talent in their year.

“My father.”

Tom didn’t fill the silence with questions. No sudden camaraderie could convince him that was a safe subject to dive into with this witch. Surprisingly, Daphne filled it instead.

“In the summer before seventh-year, my father had arranged a series of meetings with one of the most eminent Potions Masters in Europe. He had known the man while at Hogwarts and wanted to use my interest in the man’s mastery subject as a plausible reason to talk shop, convince him that Greengrass Imports had a lot to offer as a supplier or a business affiliate if not partner.” 

I had a deep interest in potions, so my father asked his old acquaintance if he’d be willing to discuss the further study of the subject with his Heiress.” Daphne’s inhale sounded shaky to Tom’s ears, but it could have been the rustling wind. 

“We met four times, and each conversation filled me with a deep longing to learn from this man. He carried the breadth of his knowledge like a satchel slung across his torso. Every flick of his fingers and twitch of his lips had a purpose, expressed some nuance of potions-making that I’d never stopped to consider.” She paused.

“I felt smaller than I ever had before then, but also like I was on the cusp of growth, of the beginning of my own greatness. All this empty space staring me in the face that I wanted to fill with my brilliance.” 

“How did you end up here, then?”

Her laugh was brittle, bitter almost. Lacking any real humor.

“Towards the end of our fourth conversation the potions master had asked me about ingredient acquisition, my favorite place where the search had led me or if I had a certain method of harvesting that differed from the standard.” Her tone was brittle, so close to breaking. Tom only realized then that he never actually wanted to see Daphne broken. “I was confused. I told him, ‘I’m not quite sure what you mean. I don’t  _ have _ to find my own ingredients. My father provides me with everything I need for my potion-making, sir. He and his associate cultivate excellence.’ I actually quoted the Greengrass Imports slogan to the man, as if he was unaware of the claims or how they truly compared to his own company.”

What? The only company in the UK that compared to Greengrass Imports was--oh. Tom felt a surge of pity for her, but kept any evidence of such off his face regardless of whether or not she could see him. No Slytherin wanted someone’s pity.

Daphne’s frustration at her past self made her voice shake, but she continued. “He frowned at me, asking in almost a whisper, ‘So you’ve never picked your own herbs, or started a collection of hand-collected ingredients. Never earned a boon from a creature or experimented with ingredients harvested at different times in the moon’s cycle.’ He said them as statements rather than questions, but my stunned silence was answer enough for if they had been real inquiries.” 

“I sat there in our family parlor and watched him put a hand over his mouth, long index finger tapping on his cheek as he stared at me. Any slight warmth had drained from his eyes long before he gave a final shake of his head and said the words that changed my life.

Tom almost couldn’t bear to hear the rest, but he felt he owed it to her to listen if she was willing to tell him.

“He sneered as he definitely told me,“‘You want to be a potions mistress, but you’ll never achieve the title.’ I remember feeling the blood drain from my face. Here was this man I wanted for a mentor, telling me I’d never accomplish my only goal.” Her voice was raw, and Tom felt more for Daphne Greengrass in that moment than he would ever admit to. He struggled to imagine what it would feel like to have Slughorn or Harry crush his hopes in such a way. His eyes closed in pain at the thought.

Daphne’s voice was ragged as she went on. “He stampeded over me as he continued, saying ‘You say you’re passionate, but you’re neglecting one of the most important aspects of the craft. Each and every ingredient has a purpose in a potion, Miss Greengrass. You know this. Did you never think to care for how those ingredients were grown, harvested, prepared, attuned? You care for the intricacies of how they are combined, but refuse to look at what gives them their power? Ignorant girl.’ he spat. ‘You’ll never be capable of creating something truly spectacular when you don’t appreciate the magic of creating at its lowest.  _ No one _ is above magic, even the simplest of magics, if it is done correctly.”

Tom could picture the whole scene. Daphne, sitting straight-backed and perched at the end of a chair clutched the arm rests as if they were the only thing keeping her from floating to the ceiling. Mr. Prince, dismissive and callous as he was insulted on behalf of magic itself, giving her a final dismissive glance before making his exit with only the barest of civilities extended to his host. Lord Greengrass furiously lighting into his daughter in his study afterwards now that his opportunity to woo Prince to affiliate with his business slipped from his fingers. Daphne’s shuttered face closing off, keeping the feeling that her whole future had crumbled in her hands to herself.

“And that is how Mr. Prince upended my life.” She whispered that final sentence, sounding smaller and sadder than Tom could have ever imagined her to be only a month ago.   
  
Tom sat up to look at the witch laying beside him. Daphne’s ice blue eyes were squeezed closed, her ebony hair fanned out around her, rumpled and tangled. Her ivory skin was paler than Tom had ever seen it, and her slightly parted lips trembled. Tom opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He took in her spent form once more and let himself sink back to the ground.

He was reluctant to break the silence that had descended upon the two of them, but he couldn’t say nothing. Not after that.

Again, it was Daphne who filled the silence. 

“My final interview for this job was with Mr. Prince. It lasted for all of a minute and a half.”

To his embarrassment, Tom’s incredulous noise, somewhere between an exclamation and a scoff, managed to escape his throat at that.

Daphne gave a real laugh in answer.

“Yeah, that was my inner reaction as well. I’m not sure if you’ve met him yet, but he’s got this presence that really fills a room. He swept in, and the door latched shut behind him. I could hear the soles of his dragonhide boots click as he walked toward the table I was seated at, the click of the door closing. His look was blank, but his eyes held this hint of derision that made me have to hold my breath to avoid flinching.”

Tom could picture that scene as well. He remembered how he felt in his own final interview, the face of the scarred stranger who had gently asked him ‘Why is it that you want this position, Mr. Riddle?” His face was kind, despite his mutilated flesh, but his eyes were hard conveying  _ if you want this for the wrong reasons, you’ll regret wasting my time. _

Daphne continued, breaking Tom out of his own memory. “He has this deep, smooth voice that twists inside me when I hear it, but when he asked me “Why is it that  _ you _ want  _ this _ position, Miss Greengrass?” I was strong, solid, certain in my answer of “Because I know how much I have to learn, and that this company and this internship stand the best chance at teaching me what I missed during the first 17 years of my life.” He raised an eyebrow and asked a single follow up question in a slow drawl that made my skin itch. “And that is?”

Tom was still watching her lay there with her eyes shut, and he felt himself mirror the smile of triumph that she sported at the memory of her redemption. 

“I rattled off the answer almost as soon as he finished asking. ‘The importance as well as brilliance of magic in all its forms and possibilities. Also, humility.’ I’m very proud to say his lips twitched at that,” She said, laughing again. They were both still connected to the intensity of thought and emotion from the ritual, and he could feel her euphoria course through him the same way he had felt her earlier sorrow.

“He thanked me and left with the same fanfare from his entrance. I got the letter that I’d been selected two days later.”

She fell quiet, her satisfaction ringing between them like clanging bells. They laid there, taking in that which had been revealed as well as that which had been accomplished. 

This time, it was Tom who broke the silence. “You must already know this, and,” he paused, unsure if he really wanted to offer his unfiltered thoughts in return, but chose to do so against his instinct. “My opinion probably doesn’t mean much to you. But you’ve proven you belong here, Daphne, that you deserve this. There can’t be any doubt in their minds, in your mind, after how you’ve performed these past seven months.” 

Tom felt Daphne’s gratitude overwhelm all the other emotions they had been sharing up until now, but he didn’t say it to earn her gratitude. He said it because he meant it and because it had taken courage to share her thoughts with him, which is why he offered her one more of his own.

“Also, for what it’s worth, I know you’ll be a brilliant potions mistress if this last month is any indication.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

“You’re welcome, Daphne.”

The silence that followed was content, and they didn’t disrupt it before or even during the breaking of the ritual circle. Instead they gathered their remaining supplies and ingredients and the containers of stakes, shrunk everything down and made to return to the LHR buildings all without speaking a word.

As the both walked in stride back to the greenhouses to gather their jackets before heading to the apparition point, Tom felt the loss of their connection keenly. He was frustrated with himself, but could admit it made some sense. Her emotions had been synced with his for a full lunar month. It had been an adjustment the first day or so, and it’d be an adjustment on the tail end as well. It would be harder to return to the cold neutrality of their regular relationship, but he would do it because he had to. Needs must and all.

Tom plotted out some magical exercises he could do the next day to re-acclimate to the feel of his singular magic, but Greengrass interrupted his thoughts with a loud clearing of her throat.

He saw she had turned her head to look at him, and they both paused their walk.

“Yes?”   
  
Baby blue met navy, and she spoke. “We’ve left the clearing.”   
  
Tom raised an eyebrow. “I’m aware of that, Greengrass.” 

She blinked and pursed her lips, starting to turn away, but then she visibly steeled herself and focused on Tom’s raised brow as she said, “I think I’d like you to call me Daphne, regardless of where we are.”

Tom’s other brow rose to meet its counterpart. The woman in front of him held herself tightly, braced for impact in the form of rejection. 

“Call me Tom then, Daphne,” he decided.

The tension drained out of her, and they both automatically extended their left hands to grasp the other’s forearm.

In unspoken agreement, the pair dropped hands a moment later and turned on their heels to resume their walk back to the greenhouses.

To say Harry was pleased when he heard Tom and Daphne using each other’s first names at lunch that week would be an understatement.

\-----

“Salazar,” Tom sighed as he fell into bed on his back, not bothering to do more than shuck his jacket before collapsing on top of his duvet. Muscles weren’t supposed to burn like this. Everything in his body twinged. He couldn’t feel his toes, and his magic was so spent that he only felt a dull throb running through his veins rather than the energetic torrent that was his usual companion. 

“Harry is a  _ menace _ . If he didn’t know more magic than anyone else I’d ever met I’d have told him to sod off weeks ago.” Daphne had indeed mentioned a mild but rare poison a few weeks back, and Tom was considering it after today. He’d get back to her on the temporary dispatching of their boss after he’d had some food and a long rest.

Tom managed to raise one hand to run over his face. He slapped his own cheek lightly, trying to keep himself awake. He was supposed to get changed and head to his mother’s for dinner. Something he was ever more excited for considering he wouldn’t have to stand on sore feet in front of his stove to make something edible. “Agh, If he wasn’t so bloody fit, I’d--” The creak of his bedroom door falling further open made him lift his torso enough to see what had caused the door to move.   
  
“Oh? What would you do Tom darling? I’m quite curious, I must say.” Merlin. His mother stood in the doorway, leaning against the framing and trying to keep a polite, inquiring expression. However, Tom could see the amused sparkle of her deep brown eyes and groaned, flopping back onto the bed in mortification.

“Hello, mother. I thought dinner was at your house, not mine.”

“Yes, I assumed that when you apparated in looking like you’d been beaten with a dirt-filled spade and trod off to your bedroom like a scolded child without so much as a “Hello, mum” or a kiss on the cheek. What’s a mother to do when her only son doesn’t even notice she’s slaving away in the kitchen? What’s a cook to think when the smell of their food doesn’t alert their diners that something is bubbling away on the stove?”   
  
Tom’s lips tugged up into a fond smile at her woeful tone and the escalating exaggeration in her voice. 

“My apologies, mother. It seems my observation skills are sorely lacking when I’m dead on my feet.” He gingerly moved into a sitting position before standing to go and pull her into a hug. “It’s wonderful to see you, and thank you for coming to make dinner tonight.” He finished with the requested kiss on the cheek and relaxed into her as she kept an arm around his waist and tugged him back into the kitchen with her.

She deftly maneuvered him into a barstool overlooking the kitchen, and had placed a glass of water and some cut up vegetables in front of him before he felt he had so much as blinked. After a few large gulps of the refreshing liquid, Tom’s senses began to return. The aroma of simmering beef stew rolled over him, making saliva pool in his mouth in anticipation of a steaming bowlful. The light rosewater scent of his mother’s perfume also lingered in the air. Tom closed his eyes and took a deep breath, enjoying this moment of familiar comfort.

“Okay, so, tell me about this Harry then. What’s he done to make my son some kind of unfurrry?”

Tom’s laugh burst out of him unchecked. “Inferi, but quite close. Well done, mum.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to the stovetop with a scoff while Tom continued chuckling softly.

“Harry is one of my bosses. One of the big bosses, actually.” His mother hummed her interest at the mention of the owners.

“Oh! Is this the one you had said was out of the country a few months back? I remember you being in a snit because someone or another wasn’t able to oversee your internship as you’d wanted.” His mother’s raised eyebrow chastised him for complaining while her twitching lips proved she found the whole thing amusing.

Tom sighed. “That would be Harry, yes.”   
  
“You call the owner of the company by his first name?” His mother’s skepticism was no surprise. Outside of their home, she had usually insisted on respectful address and general decorum. 

“He practically forced us to from the moment we met him, and he’s younger than you’d think. In contrast, I’m not sure I could call Mr. Prince by his first name, even if it were at his request.” Tom explained.   
  
“How old is this Harry? If he’s as big a deal as you went on about when first describing this job to me, then he has to be early to mid-thirties at the youngest.”

“He’s twenty-five.” 

His mother paused in her stirring of the stew and turned towards her son slowly as she processed what he had said.

“Tom, you told me the owner was likely the richest wizard in the UK.”   
  
“Yes.”

“And that he had multiple degrees as well as countless publications.” 

“Masteries rather than degrees, but, essentially, yes.”

His mother blinked, and Tom just returned her blank look with a weary but almost exasperated one of his own.

“And the man is twenty-five years old?” She continued.

“Yes. Isn’t it infuriating?” Tom answered, as if such a person wasn’t the most ridiculous thing either of them had ever heard of. “Is the stew almost ready?”   
  
“Darling, your boss is a young and,” she looked at him inquiringly, “handsome?” He nodded and she huffed. Tom understood. The man’s utter attractiveness aggravated Tom to no end each and every time Harry insisted on his retrenching the alihotsy by 3/7 of an inch for each individual plant or twisting his wrist a different way than he’d been taught while casting aguamenti because it ‘affected the quality of the water he produced for the snapping hydrangeas’ or any of the hundred other inane tweaks to Tom’s work that Harry had requested (demanded) since taking over as the supervisor of Tom and Greengrass’s internships three and a half months ago.

Still, his mother soldiered on, “handsome renaissance man backed by the obscene wealth of a trust-fund child who invested the whole account in a lucrative business and tripled it. And you’re just ready to move on from that topic?”

He smiled and gave her a cheeky response. “Well, it’s not news to me, now is it? And that slavedriver you’re excited over has had me on my feet or hands and knees in the dirt for the majority of the day, casting more spells and expelling more magic than I’ve ever done since buying my wand. So, yes, I’m quite eager to hear about the progress of dinner.”

  
She swatted the air in his direction. “Fine, but I’ll resume grilling you about him once you’ve got a bowl in you.”   
  
“I wouldn’t expect anything less. You raised  _ me _ after all.”   
  
They shared a laugh, and Tom brought the conversation around to ask about her day instead, granting himself a brief respite from sharing his complicated thoughts on his boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts/feelings in the comments if you're so inclined!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom and his mother have that after-dinner conversation about Harry. Tom's mum comes to the rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give up. There's no way this fic is ending in four chapters. I have too much left of this story to tell! We aren't even to the MAIN PLOT because this story evolved as my knowledge of these characters grew and grew like ivy creeping up the walls in the greenhouse of my imagination. So, here's a shorter chapter before we actually dive into said plot. I wanted to get this out so all you wonderful people who've subscribed to this story know that I'm still here and WILL be finishing it. No matter how many chapters it takes to do so! Thank you to everyone who has read, left kudos and comments and subscribed. Seeing people enjoy my stories encourages me every day. Again, this story is unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own. Enjoy!

Three bowls of stew and a glass and a half of wine later saw Tom settled onto the settee across from his mother as she refilled their stemless glasses and eyed him expectantly.

“I’ve given you plenty of time to relax and replenish, I think.”   
  
Tom breathed a laugh out through his nose rather than letting it escape from his mouth. “Yes, mum. Your restraint was impressive, I must say.”

She just raised her eyebrows and took a slow sip from her glass, silently saying _well, go on then_.

“What can I say?” Tom started with a shrug. “Harry is like no one I’ve ever met. He is kind and bashful when we chat during lunch breaks or when we’re done for the day, but when he’s in the greenhouse or undertaking company business he is exacting and powerful and the sheer breadth of his knowledge is humbling.” Tom’s eyes lit with a fire as he revealed his admiration for his boss, and his mother couldn’t help the fondness for her son that swelled in her heart at the sight. 

“I mean, Merlin, I’m exhausted down into my bones and holding on to my politeness by a tiny little tether because the first five and a half months of the internship were spent learning spells and protocols and being put through my paces as this whole new system was revealed to me.” Tom looked off over his mother’s shoulder, falling into the memories of his first month on the job.

The room faded as he remembered the weeks of procedures he and Daphne had needed to prove they could complete with their eyes closed. He could still feel the bite of the leather-bound miniature LHR grimoire slapping against his palm as Longbottom handed it to him. The book had been filled with page upon page of spells adapted to their profession that needed to be memorized including animated diagrams of wand movements and illustrations of the plants for which they were most appropriate. It had also contained numerous blank pages for Tom’s own speculations and improvements, if he were to form any during his time with the company.

“In those first few months, I had already discovered so much magic among the foliage, so many ways to reconsider the subject of Herbology, but I had finally felt settled in the internship. As if now I was perfecting my skills rather than developing them.” His mother could hear the stirrings of pride in his voice, and she couldn’t remember his pride in himself ever being so _quiet_ before now. 

“Then Harry returned from his acquisition trip and stripped the pair of us back down to the beginning.” Tom’s voice was equal parts frustration and admiration, and his mother felt an intense curiosity about this Harry. She had never seen her son so rattled. _Tom could stand to be rattled every now and then, I suppose_ , she thought with an inward smile.

“He came in with his wild hair and bright eyes and began casting magic I had never even dreamed of but all for simple purposes.” His eyes met hers and she almost gasped at the anguish pooling in his deep blue irises. “His chosen profession embodies everything I had looked down upon during my time at Hogwarts. Then he unraveled my whole world, everything I’d deemed most important or powerful, by sharing his brilliance in small glimpses, miniscule differences in his actions that separate a good Herbology Master from an exceptional one. He is the most intentional wizard I’ve ever met, and every day learning from him is another baptism into his way of magic: shocking cold and inviting warmth somehow coexisting in the same moment.”

Tom’s voice lilted up in remembered excitement as he thought back to the wonder of witnessing for the first time what kind of magic Harry was intent upon teaching them. During the two weeks Harry had observed Tom and Daphne to access their skills, he hadn’t given them many corrective notes. He spent the majority of his time cataloguing the ability to follow the basic procedures Longbottom had drilled into them. However, on a few particular occasions, Harry had broken his silence to explain some of the more-advanced methods he had developed to increase LHR’s output.

One of the most notable happened about a week into Harry’s shadowing them. Tom had been tickling the twirling tulips, and Harry had called Daphne over to watch as he moved in place behind Tom to demonstrate his own particular method for encouraging the petals to spread. 

Harry’s smooth voice had swelled in the greenhouse like a jasmine lullaby, and Tom willed the flush that started to creep up his neck back down. _Pull yourself together, Riddle_. He swallowed down the gasp that wanted to escape when he felt the heat of Harry’s firm chest as it pressed against his back. 

“Instead of stimulating the stem and the outer bulb, I recommend that you use one hand to cup the flower and the other hand to lightly stroke down the outside of the petals.” Harry pulled Tom’s left hand up to cup the tulip in front of them, placing his own palm over the outside of Tom’s hand. “Take two fingers and gently patter them along the petal.” He separated Tom’s middle and index fingers and slowly fluttered them down the outside of each individual petal before switching so that each hand did the opposite action. _This shouldn’t be erotic. This_ **_shouldn’t_ ** _be erotic._

“The flowers will feel a stronger connection with the increased intimacy of being held, and the petals will open wider, following the direction of your fingers,” Harry explained, withdrawing his hands from Tom’s and using them to push off his knees to straight out of a crouch.

Tom and Daphne had exchanged a glance, something that had become much too common with Harry’s return to LHR’s home offices. Tom valiantly ignored her twitching lips. _This is no laughing matter, Greengrass. Harry’s rather muscular under those henleys_. 

The pair couldn’t help but be a bit skeptical as to whether or not the tulips’ typical post-tickle behavior would change and whether or not the extra time spent on each flower would be worth the future yield. 

When they returned to water the twirling tulips the next afternoon, Daphne and Tom had gapped, mouths falling open at the sight spread out before them. 

The petals were spread wider than any tulip Tom had ever seen, as if they’d interrupted the field of flowers during their midday stretch. The plants were _whirring_ through the air as the stems bent and spun in an untameable ballet, rejoicing under the filtered sunlight. The smell of pollen permeated the room, and Tom could make out the glimmering golden nectar that had pooled in the center of each flower. “This has to be twice, no, three times as much nectar as I’ve ever seen the twirlers produce,” Daphne whispered. 

Harry’s knowledge, his focused intention with the plants, was humbling. And hot.

Tom resumed his impassioned explanation of what made Harry so special. He needed to make his mother _understand_ . “He firmly believes everything can be improved, that there’s always an adjustment to be made, a method of harvesting to be perfected, spells to boost.” His mother prevented herself from giggling, but just barely. _Goodness, Tom is giddy! Like he was 10 again and given free reign in a bookshop_! She raised her wine glass to her lips so as to hide her burgeoning smile. 

“Which would be great if it weren’t so _exposing_. He’s so young and his talent is both natural and honed through experience. Whenever Daphne or I ask questions he not only has answers but theories beyond the already-improved answer _discovered by_ _him_ that he is still working to improve.” Tom’s wine-glass-free hand dragged through his hair, giving him a rumpled, almost feverish look. “Mum, he’s a madman and a genius and I am nothing, my talent and ambition is nothing in comparison to him, and . . . and I don’t know how to deal with the thought that I’m not destined for the same greatness.” Tom’s voice had gone from a gasping crescendo to a faint whisper, showing his mother just how shaken her boy was over his young man. _Or_ , she suppressed her amused smile, _older man_.

“Darling,” his mother’s voice sounded unbearably fond, and Tom sighed. He knew he was being dramatic, almost fatalistic. He maintained it was a side effect of being around Harry as he knelt among the begonias and massaged their stems while humming _clair de lune_ . The man even recommended he and Daphne take singing lessons during their lunch break this afternoon. Tom had been _this_ close to pelting the man with a handful of crisps, and he saw Daphne have to cast a reparo on the wooden bench they were sitting on before they left to return to the dancing dragongrass patches they’d been pruning most of the morning. _What is it with this man and the athletic flora_? Tom had thought. 

“We can’t leave finger-shaped grooves gouged into our favorite pub’s seating just because our boss has added another task to our “Things To Do To Be A Better Magic User” list, now can we?” he whispered on their way out the door. 

“Oh fuck right on off, Tom,” she’d grumbled back, mumbling under her breath how “I’ll show _you_ a vocal coach, Harry Potter, right after I slip you enough volubilis potion to make you sound like a pre-pubescent teenager. Tom snorted. He had tried to cover it with a cough, but he knew he’d been unsuccessful when the toe of Daphne’s boots bashed into his shin. “Keep it up and I’ll slip you some too.” He’d kept his amusement to himself after that.

His mother’s reassuring tone brought Tom back from wondering how much distilled foxglove would make Harry moderately ill. “You have time. So much time. I know this Harry is quite young to have done all that he has done, but you’re even younger,” she reminded him. 

Before he could interrupt to mention that Harry had been the president of the company at Tom’s age rather than the intern, his mother beat the rebuttal she had known would be coming. “The benefit of learning from someone great is not having to make their mistakes, learning from their failures as much as their successes so you can avoid them. Apprentices and students are meant to rise higher, faster than those who came before them. I know you’ve heard the phrase standing on the shoulders of giants. There’s no shame in a process that allows you to take in the breathtaking view of the world spread out in front of you.” It was Tom’s turn to feel a deep fondness. His mother somehow always knew the right things to say. He breathed deeply, letting her logic fill his lungs and suffuse through his veins. 

“You clearly know what a resource this man is, so use what’s in front of you. Ask him questions until your throat gives out. Try creating your own methods or improvements or, I don’t know, mix of fertilizer!” She cried, still a bit uncertain of what it was Tom did at his job. 

Oh, she listened intently when he explained it to her, but the intricacies of magic still felt a centimeter beyond her grasp even after all this time. Tom’s magic was something she could believe, sense, even brush her fingers against on occasion, but no matter how much she tried to understand exactly what magic was and how it drove Tom’s life, it evaded her.

Her son looked thoughtful and tired as he processed her words. His stubbornness was the only thing keeping his eyes open, and even still it was taking longer and longer for his eyelids to flutter open after each blink. “Oh, Tom. Get some rest, my love. Everything looks better in the morning after a nice sleep.” She patted his cheek and leaned in to press a light kiss against his waxen forehead. 

“You need to recharge. Things always feel impossible when you’re worn down. Set your alarm for 45 minutes earlier than your usual time.” She demanded. She stared down his raised eyebrows until he nodded, acceding to her wishes. “I’ll bring over some fresh-baked pastries in the morning, brew you a strong cup of tea and be a sounding board for whatever ideas you have in that brilliant brain of yours,” she promised him. She felt triumphant as she saw the corners of his mouth quirk up in a smile he wasn’t successful at hiding. 

“I may not be able to improve them, but I can maybe ask some questions that will help you figure out what to focus on first.” She was convincing herself as well as Tom of the benefits of this arrangement. “You can write them down in that book of yours that’s always laying about, and when you’re ready you can ask this Harry his opinion.” Her eyes were bright as she finished explaining her plan for How To Fix Tom’s Existential Crisis.

Moments like this made being a mother worth every moment of doubt and every argument over meaningless trivialities, for there was nothing better than seeing her son look at her like she hung the moon or made the stars twinkle. No matter how many times she showed up for him, Tom was always overwhelmed, speechless even, when she offered a solution to one of his problems.

“Tom, no one expects you to be his equal.” He winced. Merlin, even his mother didn’t think he’d-- “Yet.”

Tom shook his head, not at his mum but at himself. _Of course she believes in me. She always has._ “They wouldn’t have hired you if they didn’t think you had the potential for greatness. But greatness doesn’t happen in a day, and it rarely happens when you’re working alone. Even Harry has a partner, yes?”

  
  
 _Yes_ , he nodded, letting his mother’s words pool in his mouth, tasting their flavor and weighing their weight on his tongue. 

Even Harry had Mr. Prince, and Tom knew from Daphne’s stories that the man was as brilliant as Harry, if in different ways. If Tom thought about it, Harry and Mr. Prince would have had to have known each other long before Harry himself was 18 since they had started LHR almost immediately upon Harry’s graduation from Hogwarts. 

His mum was right. Harry _is_ a genius, but his brilliance was fed, his flame fanned by those around him: Mr. Prince, Longbottom (who Tom could not deny had a true affinity for their craft), maybe even others that Tom didn’t know about yet. Tom had only ever had himself in the magical world. 

The respect he had earned from his peers at Hogwarts had been a cold, aloof garment he’d cloaked himself with as he walked the drafty corridors. It had protected him from the worst of the bigotry that festered in those stone walls, the doubt that tangled his legs in his sheet when he tossed and turned during restless nights in the frigid dungeon. Letters from his mother had been armor he’d strapped on before every exam. They’d turned back the bladed barbs of many a taunt or group hex, but all armor had chinks and her letters couldn’t substitute for another wand backing him up.

Now, Tom spent his days under the blistering sun, sleeves rolled up and forearms bared. LHR had given him heat and dragonhide gloves so thick his hands remained soft and pale. LHR had given him Daphne and Harry and even Longbottom. Comrades in arms, wands at his sides. Tom didn’t have to be graphite-forged diamond, all glinting facets and sharp, cold edges. Here he could be rum-butter topaz, asymmetrically shaped and radiating an inner warmth if he wanted.

He offered his mother a grateful smile. “What would I do without you?” he asked, eyes going soft as he watched his mother gather their dirty plates and empty glasses, tidying their mess so he didn’t have to do anything but fall into his beckoning bed. 

“Starve,” she quipped over her shoulder as she left Tom’s sitting room. 

His resulting laughter and her light chuckle echoed around the flat. She waltzed into his kitchen, depositing her armful of dishes in his sink and turning on the hot water to let them soak. She began to scrub at the remnants of food left on their plates, but she must have felt Tom’s eyes on her for she raised her head and sent him a wink before refocusing on her task. 

“I love you, mum. I don’t say it enough, but I really do.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m already doing the washing up, Tom. There’s no need to cajole me into it. Now come give me a kiss and then get to sleeping!” He did as she asked, coming up behind her and draping his arms around her shoulder. He titled his chin down and rested his face against the top of her head for a moment and then moved to kiss the skin near her temple.

Her hands never stopped working the brush under the sudsy water, but just before Tom let go to leave her to her task she whispered, “I love you too, darling boy. More than anything.”

If he and Harry were both the dark cold and the blazing heat, then his mother was fertile soil, able to nurture whatever was trusted to her care as long as the rest of the elements didn’t make her job impossible. She was a stake, willowy thin and crafted with care but strong, unbreakable to all but the roughest handlers. 

Tom sank into his sheets feeling grounded in a way he hadn’t since finishing that first ritual with Daphne. The last few months had shaken his belief in himself, but he should have known his mother’s constant conviction in his abilities would reaffirm his own resolve. Tomorrow, Tom would wake to a fresh outlook on life, or at least his future. As well as pain au chocolat and a steaming cup of English Breakfast. 

Yes, tomorrow would be a renaissance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you think of this chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear what you guys think of this, and thanks for reading!


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